Chapter 2 - Two Stories
The police separated us.
Officer Ramirez stayed in the kitchen with Sophie and me while another officer took Mason and Erica outside.
Ava had stopped screaming by then. She lay against Sophie’s shoulder making small hiccuping noises, one tiny fist pressed beneath her chin.
Ramirez looked at the overturned pot.
“Start from the beginning.”
I told him what I had seen.
I did not soften anything.
When I described Ava hanging above the steaming pot, his expression tightened.
“You actually saw the infant positioned over the pot?”
“Yes.”
“How high?”
“Maybe a foot.”
Sophie closed her eyes.
I reached for her hand.
Ramirez continued taking notes.
“Did Mr. Reed say why he was holding her that way?”
“No.”
“What happened next?”
“I took her.”
“And you knocked over the pot?”
“Yes.”
“Intentionally?”
“Yes.”
Sophie looked at me.
I answered before she could speak.
“He was coming toward us. I wanted something between him and the baby.”
“And then he struck you?”
“Yes.”
A paramedic leaned into the kitchen.
“We need to look at that cut.”
“In a minute.”
Ramirez’s eyes went toward the door.
“Mason Reed says he was moving the child away from the stove after she started crying. He says you entered, misunderstood what you were seeing, grabbed the baby, and kicked a pot of hot liquid toward him.”
I laughed once.
There was no humor in it.
“And his sister?”
“Same account.”
“Of course.”
Sophie’s voice shook. “He was holding my newborn over a pot.”
“I understand what you’re saying, ma’am.”
“Do you?”
Ramirez stayed calm. “I’m trying to document exactly what can be established.”
That word mattered.
Established.
I knew what he meant.
Four adults.
Two stories.
No camera that we knew about.
Mason had a red patch along his wrist where the soup had splashed him. I had blood at my temple. Sophie had admitted hitting him after entering the room.
Nothing about that looked simple on paper.
Ramirez asked Sophie when she had last seen Ava before the incident.
“Twenty minutes earlier. She was sleeping upstairs.”
“Who brought her down?”
“I don’t know.”
“You left her with Mr. Reed?”
“With my husband in our house,” Sophie said sharply. “I went to take a shower.”
I watched her face as she said husband.
The word sounded different now.
“What about Erica?” Ramirez asked.
“She came over this morning.”
“Why?”
Sophie hesitated.
“I thought she was helping.”
I remembered the key in my palm.
I had slipped it into my cardigan pocket before opening the door.
I did not yet know whether that was smart or foolish.
I only knew Mason’s reaction had scared me more than the number stamped on it.
The paramedic cleaned my head and said I probably did not need stitches.
Mason refused treatment for the soup burn and the swelling near his forehead.
He also refused to leave the property at first.
Then Sophie told the police she wanted him gone.
“This is my house too,” Mason argued from the front porch.
“No,” Sophie said. “It isn’t.”
That silenced him.
The house had belonged to my husband, Daniel, before his death. He had transferred it to Sophie years earlier as part of an estate plan, long before she met Mason.
Mason knew that.
I saw the moment he realized the police had heard it too.
Ramirez looked at Sophie.
“Are you asking him to leave for tonight?”
“I’m telling him to leave until I decide otherwise.”
Mason’s expression softened instantly.
It was remarkable.
A minute earlier he had been furious.
Now he looked wounded.
“Sophie, please. You just had a baby. You’re exhausted. Your mother is feeding this.”
My daughter went rigid.
“I saw her bleeding.”
“You didn’t see what happened before.”
“I saw you walking toward her while your sister had her sleeve.”
“Helen attacked us.”
“You were holding Ava.”
“I was protecting Ava.”
“From what?”
Silence.
That was the first question Mason could not answer quickly.
Erica stepped in.
“From Helen’s screaming.”
I looked at her.
“That baby was upstairs before I arrived.”
Erica’s mouth closed.
Only for a second.
But Ramirez noticed.
So did Sophie.
Mason turned on his sister with a quick glance.
Too quick for anyone not already suspicious.
I was already suspicious.
The officers told Mason to gather essential belongings while they remained on the property.
Sophie did not let him upstairs alone.
Ramirez accompanied him.
Erica waited near the door.
She stared at the stain spreading across the kitchen.
Then at the refrigerator.
Then at me.
Her gaze stopped on my cardigan pocket.
I wondered if she could see the shape of the key through the fabric.
“You should stay out of things you don’t understand,” she said quietly.
Sophie heard.
“What does that mean?”
Erica shrugged.
“Your mother likes drama.”
“My mother just protected my child.”
“Is that what you think happened?”
Sophie stepped toward her.
I caught my daughter’s wrist.
“Don’t.”
Erica smiled.
That smile bothered me.
She was scared.
I suddenly understood that.
The cruelty in her voice was covering something else.
She wasn’t scared of Sophie.
She wasn’t scared of the police.
She was scared that I had found something.
Mason came downstairs carrying a duffel bag.
Before leaving, he stopped beside Sophie.
“We can fix this.”
She looked at him as if he had spoken another language.
He lowered his voice.
“You know what happens when your mother starts controlling everything.”
Sophie flinched.
I felt that sentence land between us.
Mason had found a private wound and pressed his thumb into it.
My daughter and I had fought plenty over the years. Daniel’s death had nearly broken us. I had become protective to the point of interference. Sophie had accused me more than once of trying to run her life.
Mason knew all of it.
He kissed two fingers and touched them to Ava’s blanket.
Sophie stepped back before he could make contact.
His face changed again.
Just slightly.
Then he and Erica left.
The police gave us instructions about emergency protective orders and documentation.
After they were gone, Sophie sat at the kitchen table.
For several minutes, neither of us spoke.
Finally she whispered, “What if I really didn’t see enough?”
I took the key from my pocket.
Her eyes widened.
“Mason saw this come out from under the refrigerator.”
“So?”
“He looked terrified.”
She turned it over.
“That could be anything.”
“Yes.”
Sophie looked toward the doorway Mason had walked through.
Then back at the key.
“Mom.”
“What?”
“He asked me yesterday if you still controlled Dad’s trust.”
I stared at her.
The house suddenly felt quiet despite Ava fussing softly in her arms.
“What did you tell him?”
“That I didn’t want to talk about money.”
“Why was he asking?”
She swallowed.
“I thought he was worried about expenses.”
I looked at the key again.
On one side of the black plastic head was a symbol so worn I had almost missed it.
Three narrow blue waves.
I recognized them.
Not because I had ever been there.
Because I had driven past the sign every Tuesday for nearly ten years.
May you like
Riverside Storage.
And I knew exactly where locker 317 was likely to be.
